Closing the Future: Environmental Research and the Management of Conflicting Future Value Orders

Sammanfattning

This paper examines a struggle over the future use of Nordic forests, which took place from 2009 to 2012 within a major research program, Future Forests-Sustainable Strategies under Uncertainty and Risk, organized and funded by Mistra, The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research. We explore the role of strategic environmental research in societal constructions of long-term challenges and future risks. Specifically, we draw attention to the role played by environmental research in the creation of future images that become dominant for how societies structure action for the long term. We also show that this process is on several accounts problematic. Research labeled "strategic" or "relevant" is intended to manage long-term risks and challenges in a sustainable way, by taking into account the "open" and "plural" nature of the future. The case of Future Forests suggests, rather, that by contributing to the emergence of dominant future images, environmental research is entangled with a process of gradual consensus creation around what may be highly selective or biased narratives of the long term, which may conceal or postpone key forms of future conflict.

Nyckelord

environmental practices; epistemology; futures; alternative life forms; politics; power; governance; space/place/scale dynamics

Publicerad i

Science, Technology, and Human Values
2019, volym: 44, nummer: 2, sidor: 237-262
Utgivare: SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC

SLU författare

• Westholm, Erik

  • Institutionen för stad och land, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

Globala målen (SDG)

SDG12 Hållbar konsumtion och produktion
SDG15 Ekosystem och biologisk mångfald

UKÄ forskningsämne

Tvärvetenskapliga studier

Publikationens identifierare

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243918791263

Permanent länk till denna sida (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/99056